


all for the sake of a touching finale

by ohvictor



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, the gang plays among us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27077491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvictor/pseuds/ohvictor
Summary: A few moments from one night of MANKAI Company's gamers playing Among Us.
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru/Utsuki Chikage
Comments: 6
Kudos: 118





	all for the sake of a touching finale

**Author's Note:**

> (muttering) captain is predictable #589368306803603608
> 
> title is from charlatan of oz song

“It’s senpai, it’s senpai, it’s senpai,” Itaru chants, his mouth as close to his mic as he can manage without causing an unlistenable amount of feedback. Across the table, Chikage’s laughing, silent so his mic won’t pick it up but a full laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that makes Itaru’s heart twinge. A lesser man — a lesser _gamer_ — might be persuaded to back down at that, but Itaru’s playing to _win_ , and anyway, the sooner this round ends the sooner he can attempt to noogie (or kiss) Chikage for being cute during a _serious_ game.

The player voice chat is a chorus of surprised noises, mostly from the younger members. “What did you see, Itaru-san?” Kumon asks, sounding excited to finally have a real lead.

“I saw him leaving Admin as I walked in. Just before I reported the body.” Itaru doesn’t look away from Chikage, as if he could eject him from the in-game spaceship with just his eyes. He feels like he’s vibrating with how _sure_ he is. “I was on my way into Admin to card swipe. Swear this isn’t a weird framing situation.”

With no one else in the room and his cover clearly blown, Chikage has no reason to keep up the facade for Itaru. As Itaru adds his verdict into the in-game chat box for emphasis, Chikage rolls his eyes and dramatically sets his phone down. 

“You better vote,” Itaru hisses at him, and earns another eye roll.

“Well, that sounds like a good enough reason,” Tenma says. 

Banri snorts. “Yeah, guess ‘taru-san bein’ sus of Chikage-san the past five rounds finally paid off.”

“Senpai’s always sus. It’s his trope.”

The votes roll in. Everyone still alive voted for Chikage, aside from Chikage himself, who politely skipped. When his little astronaut is ejected from the ship and the trailing text confirms he was an Impostor, Itaru looks up and sticks his tongue out at Chikage. 

“You should’ve killed me when you had the chance,” he mouths.

“Don’t worry, I will next time,” Chikage smiles.

—

After a fairly quick round where Muku’s very obvious first kill got him voted off early and Tenma, the remaining Impostor, got lost in the ship and couldn’t kill enough people to win, a new round starts, the more responsible students in the voice chat sounding off that this is their last round before bed. Itaru watches his screen anxiously, always hoping to see that red text. Now that it’s the last game of the night, the anticipation is high. And this time he’s rewarded — ‘Impostor’ displays at the top of his screen, and then, a surprise: the second Impostor is Chikage.

Itaru looks up quickly to catch Chikage’s eyes. Chikage, always happy to deny Itaru the satisfaction, is intent on his phone screen. Asshole. 

Well, first things first. Itaru heads to the wires at the top of the Cafeteria and pretends to examine them; instead, he’s bringing up the map to fire off the reactor sabotage. Chaos descends in the voice chat, and Itaru dashes off to help ‘fix’ the reactors. When the situation’s diffused, he stabs Juza, the last to leave the scene, and then makes his way to Electrical. There’s plenty of fake tasks he can dawdle around pretending to do, and soon Taichi comes in and Itaru’s able to kill him too, just as his cooldown from Juza finishes. Very satisfying.

As he’s leaving Electrical, someone finds Juza’s body back at the reactor, and the chat displays that Chikage’s already finished off Kazunari. Itaru looks up again, trying to meet Chikage’s eyes once again, but Chikage’s focused on his screen, although he is taking the time to let the voice chat know that he was doing a scan in the Med Bay. Itaru wants to kick him but he’s just out of reach, which Itaru discovered several rounds ago when he tried to kick Chikage for framing him as Impostor when he _wasn’t_. 

The emergency meeting ends without any real leads, and despite a few petty votes (Banri has voted for Juza every single time they can so far) no one is ejected. 

Pleased to have thus far maintained a higher body count than his high-spec, could-actually-murder-a-guy co-Impostor, Itaru shuts off the ship’s O2 and then runs to Admin to kill Kumon in the middle of probably struggling to swipe his card. Itaru feels some sympathy for the anguish of being killed in the middle of a task, but doesn’t let himself regret it. He passes Chikage on the way out of Admin, and panics for a second, because Chikage is absolutely the type to report the body and then frame Itaru as Impostor while avoiding suspicion himself. 

However, Chikage doesn’t do anything. Itaru braces himself for a body report that doesn’t come, and he runs off to the engine rooms feeling relieved. 

A moment later, the screen fades to black. Chikage must have killed someone else, Itaru thinks, and is pleased to see ‘Victory’ flash across his screen, above his and Chikage’s little astronaut forms. Itaru grabs a screenshot of the win screen, just for fun, and laughs as the voice chat fills with good-natured groans about losing.

“K, GG,” Banri says, barely suppressing a yawn that’s audible over voice. The other students echo them with similar congrats and goodnights, and then one by one they hang up. Itaru hangs up and swipes all his apps closed, including Among Us, and then lays back on the couch, stretching out his back after hunching over his phone for the last two hours.

“Good game,” he says aloud.

Across the room, Chikage’s removing his headphones and locking his phone screen, and though he’s subtler about it than Itaru, he stretches too, the bottom hem of his shirt riding up just a little to expose his belly. “Good game, Chigasaki.”

“I think we make a pretty good Impostor team,” Itaru says. “We had pretty equal kills.”

“I suppose.”

“Great combo of my gaming skills and your real life killing skills.”

“What real life killing skills.”

Itaru has no _solid_ proof on this one. “It's just in your aura. Like, the way you sometimes hold vegetables, and it feels like you could crush them in your fist.”

Chikage laughs. It’s not quite the full laugh from earlier, probably because of what they’re talking about right now, but his eyes crinkle just a little. “I don’t see what that has to do with Among Us.”

“Mm.” Itaru reaches out to him. “Come here.”

“Did you miss me? Despite the fact that we’ve been sitting five feet from each other for the past two hours?”

“You’re so far away,” Itaru insists.

Chikage relents; he stands and moves to the couch, now fully within reach. Itaru flops forward across the cushions so he can mush his face into Chikage’s unfortunately very bony shoulder. Chikage allows this, even turning his face to kiss the top of Itaru’s head. That’s very kind; Itaru’s pretty sure his messy topknot is coming apart, so Chikage risks getting stray hairs in his mouth.

“I’m glad you played with us,” Itaru says into Chikage’s shirt.

“I had fun,” Chikage says.

Itaru looks up at him, twisting his head uncomfortably in the process. “Really?”

“Really,” Chikage smiles, and presses another kiss to Itaru’s cheek. 

“You’re pretty fond right now despite having just killed a ton of people in a video game.”

“Mm.”

“I don’t hate it, though.”

Chikage laughs, just a puff of air against Itaru’s temple. It makes Itaru smile. The whole package of getting to spend time with Chikage alongside their big MANKAI family and the soft moment between the two of them now, he wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

“I hate to ruin the moment,” Chikage says finally, with a tone that suggests he legitimately does hate it, “but you told me to remind you about your SP after we finished the game.”

Itaru shoots up. “Oh, fuck.” He digs in the couch cushions for his phone, and swipes open one of the apps he’s currently ranking in. Thankfully his rank didn’t fall too badly while he was playing Among Us. 

The room fills with the sound of soft tapping, and Itaru relaxes back against Chikage’s shoulder, easing into the familiar rhythm of playing his mobage. When he gets a second to look up at Chikage, he’s rewarded with that same fond smile from earlier, Chikage’s eyes crinkled at the corners, his expression so soft it’s almost unreal, and Chikage doesn’t rush to conceal it, only lets Itaru look as long as he wants.


End file.
